The de Blasio Diaries, Chapter 19: Beanpot of Gold

I am writing this from my car, parked outside the Coop in Harvard Square. I’ve got my Dunkin’ Donuts iced coffee in the cup holder and . . . wait, sorry, I thought for a second someone was taking a picture of me with their phone, but it’s . . . just a stumbling guy in a Celtics sweatshirt pointing at a bar across the street. You gotta love this city.

Yeah, I’m in Boston—erm, Cambridge, rather. I needed a break, a sojourn. The Inner Circle show went O.K.—I had hopes that it would lead to something, you know? Best case scenario: Judd Apatow would have called to see if I wanted to make a cameo in his next movie. At the very, very least I thought I’d get a walk-on S.N.L. cameo for this weekend. Michael Keaton is hosting, and I feel like me and him would get along real well. I could play his double, or something, right? Like in a Multiplicity-themed sketch? (Yes, I know my Keaton.) We both have that—cover your ears, Chiara and Dante!—“Hot Dad” appeal, don’t we? Like, we’re gonna bring in the newspaper in our Patagonia fleece and then drive to pick you up some coffee and bagels. But no—no invitations have been made. And then I show up to a press conference the other day, and learn, once again, that it doesn’t really matter what’s going on in the world, I’m only going to be asked about my history with marijuana. What do they expect!??! One day they’re gonna ask and I’ll just bring Snoop Dogg and the Broad City girls out and start theorizing about the pros and cons of different strains of weed?

And now, because they always gotta have something, they’re making this whole hubbub out of the fact that I’m hiring a bunch of people from Boston. How is this a “scandal”? I don’t care if I hired my staff from the moon, from a garbage dump, from—dare I say it—Philadelphia? I don’t care if these guys show up to work with the Red Sox logo tattooed on their faces; if they get the job done, I don’t even mind if they come in each morning and punch me in the face while screaming about Tom Brady’s legacy before dumping canned beans on my head.

So I decided on a whim last night to make the drive up to Beantown, to get away from it all and check out some of my old haunts (Fenway first, always). Hell, all these great people I’ve been hiring from Boston made me nostalgic about my time here. (You know, I realized that Cambridge and Park Slope aren’t so different. I saw a mother feeding her toddler a kale smoothie on a bench a few minutes ago; and I just watched as a couple walked into a bookstore on a date—like, a romantic date! In a bookstore! . . . I feel a little weird watching this all from a parked car, I’ll admit.) What I love about Boston and Cambridge is that there isn’t the what-trendy-restaurant-are-you-eating-at-now or what-new-electronic-watch-is-playing-your-pop-music garbage. People dress in what’s comfortable, not what looks good. It’s not about what TV show you’re watching that no one has seen yet; it’s about watching the popular show that everyone is already watching. The Cheers bar is here, goddammit. We could use more of that Cheers-bar spirit in New York! You know, maybe I’ll drive to the Cheers bar tonight and just hire everyone there. I’m not even joking: I bet I’d get some authentic, salt-of-the-earth guys and girls who would laugh in the face of an artisanal cupcake or a trendy crop top (I have a college-age daughter, I know what a crop top is).